Take Just One Word Out of Stand Your Ground

  I'll meet you halfway on one of the provisions of Stand Your Ground laws. I won't insist we get rid of it, if you will agree to take just one word out. Just one word. Remove that one word, and I'm good. Well, the way it is written, we will have to take a few others, to get at the offending word, but it is just the one word that I am after.
   Here, I'll quote from Utah's Stand Your Ground, and see if you can pick out the word I'd drop.
   "A person is justified in using force intended or likely to cause death or serious bodily injury only if the person reasonably believes that force is necessary to prevent death or serious bodily injury to the person or a third person as a result of another person's imminent use of unlawful force, or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony."
   Spot it?
   I'd rewrite the Utah Code this way:  "A person is justified in using force intended or likely to cause death or serious bodily injury only if  that force is necessary to prevent death or serious bodily injury to the person or a third person as a result of another person's imminent use of unlawful force, or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony."
   "Believes."
   I'd remove that word. Judges and juries and prosecutors often are not in position to determine what the gunman was thinking, what he believed. Often, if he says he believed he was in danger, so be it. No one can question him. He becomes his own judge and jury, in a way, for it is his to determine whether he had the right to pull the trigger.
   I am not against laws that allow people to defend themselves. I am against laws that allow ccriminals to defend themselves against justice.